Friday, August 23, 2013

THE GREAT AWAKENING

Waking up from a really pleasant dream is a real downer which is exactly what happened when the "American Dream" bubble popped and we woke up to the "Great Recession."

Not that everything was ever peachy-keen mind you. Your home was never actually worth what you borrowed against it by using it as an ATM machine to buy up piles of made-in-china junk that you really had no need for (just wanted it) and would break or wear out long before you ever got used to it. Americans became nothing more than recycling junkies; trapped in a never ending cycle of "shop till you drop."

As the now infamous GWB boldly proclaimed after the 9/11 horror, "forget the past; take a break; go out and shop."

Updated September 14, 2010

One of the most persistent claims about George W. Bush's response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is that he urged Americans to simply "go shopping" as the nation headed into war.

"Bush did nothing to mobilize public opinion to accept the sacrifices that war implies - the first thing a leader would do," Ronald Spiers, a retired American diplomat, alleged in a 2003 op-ed in The New York Times.

"Tax cuts could go ahead as planned, and energy saving was dismissed out of hand. 'Go shopping' was the administration's message."
Now, 4 years after the great recession supposedly ended, the dream has turned into a nightmare. The American family is drowning in debt....has little or no savings in the bank........retirement is something one can only dream of.....and the best most can do is tred water. But, by golly, we still shop! Neiman Marcus has been replaced with Walmart. Abercrombie & Fitch? No, J.C. Penny.

Not to worry however. The "dreamweavers" that make up the 1% who created the last disaster are busily whipping up another one of their famous BS salads, counting on our short memory spans and our desperation to escape reality. So, go back to sleep folks. Next year will be better. That $52,098 yearly income (which would by you a low end Rolex) might get back to what you were bringing in 2007 when the Great Recession began.

American households are earning 4.4% less, when adjusted for inflation, than they were when the economic recovery began four years ago, according to a recent report by Sentier Research.

In June, the median income clocked in at $52,098, down from the $54,478 earned in June 2009. That drop is even more drastic when compared against the average income of $55,480 that households earned in December 2007, when the recession began.